


Oh little darling don't you look charming, here in the eye of the hurricane

by miabicicletta



Category: A Series of Unfortunate Events (TV), A Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket
Genre: 5+1 Things, AU, Being true to one's literary and philosophical principles, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, It's a happy ending! Except no it's not. Though it is. (It really isn't.) (Kinda.), It's the Tragic Orphan Show!, Makeouts, Weddings babies all that garbage, more makeouts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-03
Updated: 2018-05-03
Packaged: 2019-04-30 18:32:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14502999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miabicicletta/pseuds/miabicicletta
Summary: Real or imagined, what does it matter?Five things that never happened to Olivia Caliban and Jacques Snicket, and one that did.





	Oh little darling don't you look charming, here in the eye of the hurricane

**Author's Note:**

> "The writer doesn't choose the fandom; the fandom chooses the writer, Harry"; "Get in loser, we're going shipping"; "Nathan Fillion and his stupid, stupid face." Just a few among many of my excuses/rationalizations for where this came from.
> 
> Huge shout out to the speedy, savvy, all-around delightful [Starcrier](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starcrier/pseuds/Starcrier) for her marvelous beta-reading abilities. I couldn't decide on tenses when I started these, so her A+, rockstar efforts were very much needed. 
> 
> Title comes from the magical realism cowboy tune ["Hurricane (Johnnie's Theme)"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qg_G9SfdREQ) by Lord Huron. Smart words paraphrased at various points (see below for full citations). Daniel Handler owns all this suffering.

_one_

 

A man in a dark jacket nearly knocks her over as he rounds the corner to the library. Startled, she drops the pile of books in her hands.

 

Olivia Caliban shoots him a glare. “You nearly ran me over," she accuses. In spite of the leather coat and sharp eyes, he has the sense to look aggrieved.

 

She crouches to retrieve her things. Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac are looking a bit dusty. e.e. cummings has seen better days.

 

The man places  _One Hundred Years of Solitude_ , _The Call of the Wild, The Complete Poems of Edgar Allan Poe_ in her hands.

 

“Pardon me, miss." He tips his head in deference. "I didn’t mean to startle you, and I’ll never forgive myself.” 

 

He says it like swearing an oath, or making a promise. 

 

 _Bit rich,_ she thinks, arching a brow. “Never?”

 

“Well, not for a long time.”

 

The man gives her what she imagines is supposed to be a disarming smile, which is not something that will work on her.

 

He holds out a hand to help her up.

 

She takes it, noting the strength in his arms and the laugh-lines at his eyes.

 

Well, it won’t work on her _much_.

 

“I’m looking for a book," he says, "and I’m in a bit of a rush. Perhaps you can help me. I’d be very grateful.”

 

“Finding books is generally what librarians do,” she counters.

 

“Then you’re exactly the woman I need.”

 

A beat.

 

 _Oh boy_ , Olivia thinks.

 

She tips her head toward the library. He follows, taking the books from her arms as she unlocks the door. 

 

He looks around as they enter. “This place..." he says, to himself more than her. "This place I remember.”

 

“You were a student here?”

 

“A long time ago.”

 

Not exactly fond, not exactly sad, the expression on his face.

 

Whixh adds up. Olivia can’t imagine anyone being _glad_ to step foot in here again. Prufrock Preparatory School is many things, but happy, nurturing, fulfilling…

 

She sighs. Back to task.

 

 _This_ is something she can help with, not changing administration overnight, or making the world a brighter, kinder, more welcoming place. “What is the book you were looking for?”

 

“ _The Incomplete History of Secret Organizations.”_

 

Her shoulders droop. Of course it would be. “I’m afraid we don’t have it," she says with a shake of her head. "That book has been rather in demand lately. I did a thorough search for it just the other day.”

 

“I see.” He shakes off the obvious disappointment. “I’m sure you didn’t overlook it. This is a meticulously organized library. Obviously the work of a masterful librarian.”

 

Her visitor nods in her direction, which makes her brighten, just a bit. 

 

“Thank you. I wish the administration shared your opinion.Truthfully, you’re one of the few people to notice my work.”

 

 _Or me_.

 

She holds up a hand, gesturing to the shelves. “‘You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture–”

 

“–you just have to get people to stop reading them,” he finishes. “Ray Bradbury said that.”

 

“Yes,” Olivia replies. Her eyes narrow in surprise.

 

“Those are some of my favorites, by the way. I have them in my own library.”

 

He gestures to the stack she had been carrying in the hallway, touching the cover of _The Complete Poems of Edgar Allan Poe_ like it was holy to him. Maybe was.

 

 _“‘_ The moon never beams without bringing me dreams...’”

 

Their eyes meet. Something strange and charged passes between and around and through them all at once. It's a recognition of sorts ( _you’re one too, aren’t you?_ and  _yes, yes, I’m so glad to find you)_ ; a bubble, like joy or laughter; a sudden spark of desire to stay inside the moment, close the doors and lock them tight, shutting out the world and all the terribleness that lived there.

 

The sound of the bell rings out.

 

“Would you like a cup of tea?”

 

 _Stay,_ she thinks.

 

“Badly, and often,” he answers, stepping closer. His jaw ticks. “But I’m afraid I–”

 

“Right, you’re in a rush.”

 

“Another time?” he asks.

 

“Do you come here often?” she asks. 

 

His bright eyes sparkle. “I will now.”

 

He touches her elbow—a thanks, a parting, a promise.

 

“Wait!”

 

He pauses in the door.

 

Olivia shakes her head. “I don’t know your name.”

 

He holds the door. “Jacques. Jacques Snicket. And yours, masterful librarian?”

 

“Olivia. Olivia Caliban.”

 

He repeats it once. Smiles.

 

And is gone.

 

She shakes her head, lets out a long breath, replying the strange encounter. It is _not_ everyday handsome alumni wander into her corner, quoting dystopian writers and tragic odes. She rather looks forward to Jacques Snicket’s next visit.

 

Only, it never comes.

 

The pep rallies go on.

 

Nero’s concerts become Remora’s lectures become Agnew’s pageants.

 

The library is visited only by her. Her, and the motes of dust blown in from the Hinterlands.

 

The Baudelaires and the Quagmires vanish into time and then history as Olivia Caliban loses more of her spirit each year.

 

The brightness of her smiles and the palette or her wardrobe diminish, bit by bit until the springtime yellows and cherry-red polka dots have faded to charcoal and slate.

 

So many aspects of the person she once was disappear.

 

She stays with her books, with only loneliness and dissatisfaction for company.

 

Until one day, many years later, a young person with an unfamiliar and suspicious look approaches her.

 

“Miss Caliban,” the young person asks. “Can you help me find a book?”

 

“No,” Olivia Caliban replies.

 

She turns the key.

 

The lock _clicks_ into place.

 

“The library is closed.”

 

 

_two_

 

Jacques sets his teacup aside. “Kit says no.”

 

“Beatrice says yes,” Jacquelyn counters.  

 

“Larry says yes,” says Larry.

 

“And you?” He folds his arms across his chest. “What is it you say, Jacquelyn Scieszka?”

 

Jacquelyn folds her arms across her chest, mirroring his stance and countering it too. “I say you’re the deciding vote.”

 

He sets his teacup aside. Recruitment is not his specialty, more a chore than anything else. Still, it is important, he knows. And he _does_ enjoy the rare and blissful moments when his sister is wrong. If there is something to this would-be volunteer, he’ll find it.

 

She's in the darkest corner of the largest and quietest second-hand bookshop in the city, and the philosophy section, no less. She stands with her back to him, wearing bright blue and brighter curiosity.  

 

“Voltaire. Diderot. Lévis.” He glances up. "Lots of questions. Not a lot of answers."  

 

A discerning look over dark-framed glasses. “'Judge a man by questions rather than answers,'” she replies.

 

His mouth twitches.  

 

She holds out a hand, introduces herself before adjusting her glasses primly. She is serious, wary, attractive. 

 

He leans back, considering the shelves before him like a group of old, unchanging friends. For all their endless arguments, the concentric circles of logic spun out in the dusty breath of long-dead men, these books are treasures, too.

 

“What brings you to our group, Olivia Caliban?”

 

She places Voltaire beside his fellows. “Hope. Or maybe the lack of it. I don’t know anymore.”

 

Jacques says nothing, finding silence, more often than not, elicits more than any ten questions.  

 

“When I was a little girl, my father disappeared. My mother was gone. I’ve spent a long time trying to find out what happened to him. To both of them, really. For a while I thought I might try to find some answers in a book I remember he had, something I think might explain what happened to them, but I’ve never been able to find it.”

 

Her fingertips ghost the spines of each volume, hovering over the gilt lettered titles, names of authors. Searching, even now.

 

“But it doesn’t matter. None of it matters.”  

 

She turns to him fully. There is something haunted in her expression. Dark circles under her lashes, lines at the crease of her eyes. Tired, but shining.

 

“They say you’re volunteers.”

 

“We are.”

 

“I used to think if I could find the right book or read enough of them, I might find what I was looking for. For most of my life,  _home_ was just another word for _library_.”

 

She shakes her head. “But I was wrong. It’s not enough to study. I want to be part of solutions. I want to _help_.”

 

Her eyes flick over DesCartes, Hume, Kant.

 

“Books are an excellent means by which to discover one’s literary and philosophical principles,” she tells him. “But they require critical minds and willing hearts to embody them. It is not enough simply to know or to understand anymore.”

 

“The world can be a cruel and dark place,” Jacques tells her. “But hope is born in dark places. That’s where we begin.”

 

Half in shadow, she holds his gaze, rapt. Nods.

 

“We volunteers believe the future is shaped by those willing to commit themselves, mind and body, to this task. Are you?”

 

Without hesitation: “Yes.”

 

He is puzzled as to what what gave his sister pause about Olivia Caliban, possessing a capable mind, armed with questions and conviction.

 

_What didn’t Kit see?_

 

His flicks his eyes to the shelves. “Find what you were looking for?”

 

She considers the shelves, and then him. “Not yet.”

 

“We can keep looking. I will too. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

 

She blushes, and Jacques realizes she is more than attractive: she is lovely. “I’m sorry, I didn’t ask your name.”

 

The shop is cool, but the air feels warm. He holds out his hand.

 

“Jacques,” he says. He feels off-kilter, at a loss. Distracted and hyper-focused at the same time. “Jacques Snicket.”

 

“Jacques,” she repeats. “Jacques Snicket.” There’s a trace of teasing in her voice, and the hope of a smile at her mouth.

 

“Maybe we can help you find the answers to your questions.”

 

“I would like that.”

 

He holds the door for her as they leave. Together they step into the light.

 

Months later, as a party thunders around him, Jacques Snicket corners his sister before she absconds with a bottle of rum and the inclination to coerce the band into a karaoke version of “Rebel, Rebel.”

 

“Why do I get the feeling you’re up to no good?” Jacques wonders.

 

“Because I usually am.” Kit tosses back her drink, snakes an arm around his waist, considering the revelry that is (in part) in honor of their newest volunteer.

 

She looks around at the crowd. “Feels like it used to, doesn’t it?”

 

“A bit.”

 

“Like we can be heroes.” She elbows him in the ribs. “Not bad, bro.”

 

“Thanks.”

 

“Really. I’m proud of you. She’s in it for all the right reasons. Sometimes I don’t even think I am.” She heaves a sigh. 

 

He pulls her close, knowing how difficult and complicated things could be to Kit; how often she was determined to make them that way. He frowns, wondering aloud at something that has crossed his mind more than once in the past months. “What I don’t understand is why you voted _against_ Olivia in the first place.”

 

Kit cackles with delight, her eyes shining as much from affection as from the alcohol.

 

“J. _Of course_ I vetoed the smartsy, sexy librarian with a smile like sunshine.” She mimes an arc in the air in front of his face and pokes him in the chest. “When have you ever been able to resist proving me wrong?”

 

“Oh, half past never,” he admits.

 

She saunters away, smug and satisfied.

 

“Kit?” he calls after her.

 

“Jacques?” she replies back in the same tone.

 

“How can a smile be like sunshine?”

 

She throws her hands out and bows before him in mockery. “Obviously, brother dear, when it _warms the soul_.”

 

“You’re drunk.”

 

“Whatever. You’re married." She points to the band placed on his left ring finger just hours before. "Go make me some Snicklets.”

 

 

_three_

 

Hector has tethered the balloon galleon to the barn, but the engine is working; it cannot idle forever.

 

“Go.” Jacques guides her to the steps, hand at the small of her back. “Take the Quagmires. Find Madame Lulu if you can, or else Jacquelyn at Mulctuary Money Management. We’ll rendezvous soon.”

 

Olivia scowls at him, stepping down from the balloon steps.

 

“I’m not just going to _leave_ you,” she objects, shocked he’d even suggest it. “We’re…” She searches for the word. Many come to mind, all of them feel so...so... _insubstantial_. “Partners,” she decides.

 

The corners of his mouth lift, but it is not a smile, and doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “You have to leave me sometime, Olivia Caliban.”

 

She knows what being a volunteer has cost him. Dear friends, brave colleagues, even a brother. The look he is giving her says he expects another ending, even to—maybe especially to—things worth holding on to.

 

She steps in close, her face to his, likes she’s spoiling for a fight or a kiss. She’s not sure which, but she means it either way.

 

“Like _hell_ I will, Jacques Snicket.”

 

He opens his mouth to speak, but hesitates. There’s indecision in his expression.

 

 _I want to help. Let me,_ she wills him to understand.

 

 _You can. But not here,_  his wordless answer.

 

He looks to the children, and she turns over her shoulder to follow his gaze. Curled against the deck in rumpled clothes, the Quagmire’s heads droop against one another. They are so tired and afraid. They need more than daring right now; they need the comfort of concern, and the hope of answers.

 

She turns back to Jacques. Cups his jaw as she kisses him, as if in one action, in an all-too brief moment, she could say everything she has no time to tell him. His hands find the back of her neck, winding in her hair, sending a thrill down her spine.

 

They break away after forever-long seconds.

 

“You’re sure you want to keep me around?” Fear disguised as humor.

 

Olivia nods, wrapping his hands in hers. “I do,” she swears.  “As long I can, and as long as you’ll let me.”

 

_Forever. For always. Until this story finds its end._

 

Jacques Snicket’s mouth twitches, and she knows that for all the bravery he tries to project, he’s soft as a kitten at heart.

 

He takes her hand, kisses her palm. “In that case, how does _till death do us part_ suit you?”

 

Her heart pounds in her chest. She kisses him again. “I love you,” she says against his mouth.   

 

His smile is like sun breaking in the clouds. “I know. Now go!”

 

“Bring those children home,” she calls down to him as the balloon begins to rise. 

 

He salutes. “Yes ma’am.”

 

She presses her hand to her chest, glances to the sky and she knows _he_ knows exactly what she’s thinking, and the bittersweetness that memory brings to mind.

 

 _We go up together_.  

 

The balloon rises.  

 

“We go forward together, Jacques Snicket,” she promises him, though he cannot hear, and to herself, because she can.

 

She watches him until the house and the barn and the Nevermore Tree are just dots in the distance.  

 

 

_four_

 

With the help of fine and steadfast volunteers, they rescue the Baudelaires and all the Quagmires. Olaf is gone, and Esmé and his troupe given the justice they deserve.

 

Their enemies, at last, defeated.  

 

Olivia lingers in a long, grand hallway of the VFD headquarters, staring at a years-old photograph of brave and noble volunteers.

 

A voice behind her: “You look as lost and confused as the day I found you waiting at a trolley stop, Olivia Caliban.”

 

She smiles, calls over her shoulder without turning. “A strange and vaguely presumptuous man almost hit me with a cab. I was a bit at a loss.”

 

“'Strange'? ‘ _Vaguely_ presumptuous’?”

 

She turns, holding the photograph in her hand out to him.

 

His reflection catches in the glass.

 

“I just realized, I don’t know what comes next. What to do. Where to go.”

 

“Wherever you like.”

 

“It just seems...strange. We’ve been together, all this time..."

 

Jacques leans against the table at her hip, facing her. “Together," he agrees. "Working side by side." 

 

 _And now?_  Olivia wants to ask, but cannot find the words.

 

He considers the bright, youthful smiles of his gone-away friends. He sets the photograph down, touches the frame gently. 

 

“The Quagmires always said I needed a partner. One who  _wasn't_ related to me. I never much saw the point.”

 

Her nails bite the edge of the table. 

 

Jacques takes her hand, peeling her fingers from their grip, and draws her to him. She lays a palm against his shoulder.

 

“Now I don't know what I would do without you." Jacques smiles that slow, smirking smile she's come to love. "And and I don't think I want to find out.”

* 

They marry on a fine spring day, the sky blue and clear, while their friends look on with misty eyes (Larry) and bawdy jokes (Kit).

 

For that, and every day after, they are partners in every sense: as spouses and lookouts, as scouts and getaway drivers, as proofreaders and parents.

 

They give the Baudelaires and Quagmires a sense of home and hope and purpose again. There are mountains to climb and books to read. Days spent in pursuit of honor and justice, and nights filled with tea and with laughter, the music of Sam Cooke, the poetry of Pablo Neruda.

 

In one room Violet Baudelaire is often found tinkering away with her inventions, grease on her chin and hair tied up with velvet ribbons or bits of string, whatever is on hand. In another, Klaus and Duncan pass hours that become years, debating their passions and interests. Sunny and Quigley and Isadora—they all grow and thrive.

 

Adults come and go, no longer arousing fear and suspicion in any of the children.

 

Olivia Snicket wakes up smiling every day. Not just content, but _happy_. She has knowledge to share, books to give home, and a brave and well-read husband whose bottom she rarely resists pinching.

 

Jacques Snicket fights fires, but finds there are fewer now, and it brings him joy to know it, even if it changes his purpose. He passes the taxi on to a new volunteer, and spends his days—what else?—teaching. Nights, he is given to whispering in Spanish against his wife’s smooth skin. _No te vayas por una hora porque entonces, en esa hora se juntan las gotas del desvelo, y tal vez todo el humo que anda buscando casa, venga a matar aún mi corazón perdido._ “Don't leave me, even for an hour, because then the little drops of anguish will all run together, the smoke that roams looking for a home will drift into me, choking my lost heart.”

 

“Where did you learn that,” Olivia asks, flushed and overcome.

 

“Chile," he answers, lips at the edge of her navel. "Bolivia." His breath ghosts along her ribcage. "Peru." And kisses her breathless once more.

 

A little boy joins them on a cold winter day, and a few years later, another. The year Sunny turns fifteen, they have a last and littlest baby girl.

 

The circle is closing.

 

Theirs is a good life, filled with more joys than sorrows, and as the Baudelaires and Quagmire children grow up and go on to university and work and young lives of their own, they never stray far, visiting their adoptive home as often as they can, where there is madness and giggles and always, _always_ cake after tea. Each time they enter the door, the once-orphans all agree, something in them lifts and grows brighter while something else is soothed and settled. This relief, this reprieve, it comes from the sound of a crooning voice, the taste of sugar dust, the giggles of small, much-loved children.

 

All is well.

 

Until the day a terrible fire claims the lives of Jacques and Olivia Snicket, making orphans of the three Snicket children, Gabriel and Jack and tiny Annabel Lee.

 

 

_five_

 

Despite the bullwhip and the blow darts, each expertly delivered with poison enough to fell a Himalayan greyscale rhinoceros, deep down, in the way that he knows his sister has his back, to always take Jacquelyn Scieszka’s phone calls, and the exact color of Olivia Caliban’s eyes, Jacques Snicket knows that he is too late.

 

There is blood on her face and on her clothes and in the dirt. So, so much blood.

 

She reaches out a hand out to touch his face, astonished. “Jacques.”

 

He kisses her bloody palm. “What’s a woman like you doing in a pit like this?”

 

She is pale. Far too pale.

 

Olivia twines her fingers in his. “Dying.”

 

“Not today,” he lies.

 

She smiles sadly. “Not tomorrow.”

 

“Olivia.” It’s all he can say.

 

_I’m sorry._

 

_Me too._

 

“Take care of them. All of them. Promise.”

 

“I will. It’s going to be okay.”

 

“It will. For them. Not for me.”

 

Her gaze shifts to the very tip of the tent, the opening that looks out in to black night above. “The stars look very different today,” she said.

 

“David Bowie said that.”

 

She laughs a little, and even though he can tell it hurts, she laughs some more.

 

His chest aches. “Don’t go.”

 

“It’s okay,” she says, softly. “I knew it was dangerous. You warned me.”

 

“Don’t go.”

 

She squeezes his hand with what little life is left in her. “I won’t.”

 

But she does, and she did, and the day Jacques Snicket writes a sad tale for lost children to better understand the terrible experiences they have suffered, he includes a dedication just seven words long but endless in grief.

 

_For Olivia—_

_I’ll never forgive myself._

_Never._

 

 

_and one_

 

Darkness falls, and the stars sparkle above the Hinterlands.

 

The drive is long, but they hardly feel it.

 

Hours pass like moments.

 

They talk about everything and nothing. Rimbaud and Rousseau, childhood and siblings and adventures and children, the best means of making a Swedish princess cake.

 

“You make a good partner, Olivia Caliban.”

 

“As do you, Jacques Snicket.”

 

“Would you like to be mine?”

 

“What does it entail?”

 

“Fighting ignorance, hatred, and greed. Orphan saving and novel-reading. Subterfuge, bravery, and the art of disguise. Occasionally, there may be dancing.”

 

“Sounds compelling. Terms?”

 

“It’s a life-long commitment. I wouldn’t ask you to make it lightly, or do so under duress.”

 

“Duress!” Olivia scoffs. Her dark eyes sparkle. “That wouldn't make me much of a volunteer, would it?”

 

“I suppose not," Jacques answers. 

 

"Then you've got a deal." 

 

He catches her eye, and she holds his gaze with as much warmth as she once held his shoulder, searching for something steady in a world so easily unmoored by cruelty and greed and fear. There's hope yet for their organization, for the Baudelaires, for well-read volunteers with a strongly defined moral compass, Jacques thinks. 

 

And maybe for them, too. 

 

They drive on. 

  


**Author's Note:**

> In the interest of citing one's sources: 
> 
> "The moon never beams without bringing me dreams..." [Annabel Lee](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44885/annabel-lee), Edgar Allan Poe
> 
> "You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.” ― [Ray Bradbury](http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19930312&slug=1689996)
> 
> "Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers.”— [Pierre Marc Gaston de Lévis](https://www.theatlantic.com/notes/2016/03/answers-questioned/472551/)
> 
> "We can be heroes." "The stars look very strange today." - [David](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tgcc5V9Hu3g) [Bowie](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYYRH4apXDo)
> 
> "It is not enough to understand, or to see clearly. The future will be shaped in the arena of human activity, by those willing to commit their minds and their bodies to the task." - [Bobby Kennedy](https://www.huffingtonpost.com/jonathan-lewis/two-roberts-committed-and_b_587181.html)
> 
> "Don't leave me, even for an hour..."[ _Don't go far off_](https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/don-t-go-far-off/), Pablo Neruda
> 
> There is, for the record, no such thing as a Himalayan greyscale rhinoceros.


End file.
